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©Benson Shaw 2013

City of Seattle, BOLA Architects

Page updated:

22 August, 2017

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Fire Alarm Box Restoration

Seattle WA

Restored with clear inner panel

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries many fire departments placed these Gamewell telegraphic fire alarm boxes throughout their cities.  Citizens could alert their fire department of an emergency by pulling a lever. In the 50s and 60s a telephone was enclosed in each box, replacing the telegraphic equipment.  Ubiquitous home phones and 911 systems eventually made the alarm boxes obsolete.  Most were removed by the 1970s.


This one used telegraphic components in the early 20th century.  It was located at 12th and Columbia in the Capitol Hill neighborhood near Seattle University.  It is now restored and installed as a historic interpretive element outside the new FS9 in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood.  A clear inner panel replaces the locked inner door to reveal the clockworks and other telegraphic elements.


Pull the lever, the clockworks turns.  This generates a series of electrical impulses causing a device at the central dispatcher desk to punch out the alarm box number (653) on a paper tape.  The dispatcher notifies the nearest station to send a fireman to the box. He could unlock the inner door and use a fire department tapper code to tell dispatch the nature of the emergency and required response.  He also needed to rewind the clockworks and lock the inner door.

I Installed the alarm box Aug 16, 2013

That’s Peter Reiquam public art titled “Nine Lives” up on the roof.  It refers to a favorite cat from the old fire station.

Door Open.  Clockworks and telegraphy block  revealed.

I put zinc anodes in several places to retard brass oxidation.

Door Closed.

The bricks poking out show tapper codes for various street intersections in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood.